Any mature students on here who have gone back to study A-levels??

Hi najmat, was just talking to you on the Mature Students thread. How are you finding your subjects? Are you self-taught? What made you decide to study A-levels? And how old are you?

Maths is easy , bio and Chemistry are slightly difficult.
Yes I'm self taught . Want to get into medical school and I'm 19 years old.
The only problem I face in a levels is writing the answer in English Language , cause I'm non-native speaker.

Anything is possible my friend! Don't let the fact that English isn't your native language be a barrier to you! Are you studying AS and A2?

I'm doing both. I start with the AS now and next September A2 .
What exam board did you choose ?

That's great, I was just wondering whether you were doing AS and A2 all in one year.

I'm on Edexcel for both A-level Maths and Biology What about you?

I'm on Aqa for bio and Chem , edexcel for maths .

Awesome, good shout choosing Edexcel for Maths as there are loads of free resources online! What's your chosen module for AS Maths? Also, are you completely self-taught or do you have a tutor?

C1 , C2 and D1
I'm depending on YouTube channels 😃

And Exam Solutions I hope?

I'm studying A Level history. Started at the beginning of this year so overall I'll have a few months less than normal. The workload doesn't seem horrendous so far and it's very interesting but I'm doing a distance course and getting frustrated that the turnaround for marking essays is so far a month and waiting which is not ideal since I'll be submitting them every 2-3 weeks. If I were to do it again I think I'd feel inclined to buy the text books and just hire a local tutor but I can't change that now.

I'm 38. I already have a degree but my university experience was pretty negative. I wasn't at somewhere that was particularly good and I was young and naive and I've had an urge to return to uni to push myself because I've spent the last decade or so learning anything that interests me which turns out to be quite a lot. I plan to do access after the A level by which time my kids (who I home educate) will hopefully be old enough that it's practical for me to return to uni part time. The A level was more just to get myself back into learning and because I did very little history at school.

If you don't mind me asking: How old are your children & how do you plan to manage childcare whilst you're at university? I hope that you don't mind me asking, my daughter is still only a baby but we know that we intend to home educate her when the time comes and I'm a bit concerned about returning to university and managing home education at the same time, my husband also works full time and will be unlikely to be able to drop his hours if I'm studying. She'll be around 5 when I plan to return (and potentially a second child will be 1/2 at that point if we decide to have a second!) so obviously still young enough to be learning mostly through play but it's a concern and makes me wonder if I should stick to the OU.

Hi! I'm 28 and planning to start some A Levels later in the year, has anybody spread them over three years to help cope with the workload around working life? Did you need the extra time or would two years be sufficient? I'm not planning to go to uni for 4/5 years so it wouldn't be holding things back to do them over three years around work. I am currently on Mat leave but will be working again later in the year and I'd prefer not to be rushing to get them done around my working hours and panicking about my grades!

I'm planning to study Maths, Physics and Psychology (I've been studying psychology out of interest for years, so it'll be revision mostly!), and probably Biology or Chemistry as well. The first three would be a mix of self taught and with the help of my husband who is an Engineer and tutored through his second year of uni. I will likely sign up to a course for the other science subjects though. My plan is to go into a science or engineering based degree, I just need to narrow down what my end goal is as I have a few different ideas and I'm not entirely sure which route to take at the moment (hence not knowing which second science subject to do!)

I've decided against and access course for various reasons, particularly seeing a lot of posts on here by people in STEM subject degrees saying that they would have felt more prepared by going into more depth into subjects which they didn't feel that they got from the access, which is something I think I'll need/want.

Hi everyone😊

I'm 27, with a conditional offer to LSE... retaking the whole of politics and the last unit in sociology BUT I am really struggling to focus, I have two children 8 and 3 weeks old. And I just find that I'm really tired all the time and no longer motivated to revise! Anybody else been where I am? Any advise to motivate would be great!

Sorry for the late reply. What subject is your offer for, and what grades do you need? For someone in your position can be very tricky! What you could do is make loads of posters of spider diagrams that you can stick around the house so you can revise from them whilst you are looking after/feeding your new born! Also try to make flashcards that you can store on your phone that you can quickly read through whenever you have a chance to sit down. Storing flashcards on your phone also means you can read through notes whilst you are away from the house, say if you're queuing in the supermarket, or waiting for a bus etc. The thing with subjects like politics and sociology though is that you will also need to work on your essay/exam technique too, so try to spend a few hours a week where you can just write about a particular topic and ramble on for as much as you like. Extract tricky questions from past papers and read through Examiner reports to see where previous students have dropped marks

It's understandable that you must be tired all the time as I assume you are up most of the night looking after your new born! I'd suggest not going to bed that much later than when you send your kids off to sleep, maybe do 2 or 3 hours of studying whilst they're asleep at night then go to bed yourself. But what you need to do is try to fight your way through this and study in short frequent bursts.

I hope I could be of any help [/QUOT


Thanks for replying! You've been very helpful, I don't know why it didn't occur to me but I'm going to give both the posters and flash cards a go... and I know I need to make a start on the past question papers I do have. The offer is for Sociology requiring AAB

Hi! I'm 28 and planning to start some A Levels later in the year, has anybody spread them over three years to help cope with the workload around working life? Did you need the extra time or would two years be sufficient? I'm not planning to go to uni for 4/5 years so it wouldn't be holding things back to do them over three years around work. I am currently on Mat leave but will be working again later in the year and I'd prefer not to be rushing to get them done around my working hours and panicking about my grades!

I'm planning to study Maths, Physics and Psychology (I've been studying psychology out of interest for years, so it'll be revision mostly!), and probably Biology or Chemistry as well. The first three would be a mix of self taught and with the help of my husband who is an Engineer and tutored through his second year of uni. I will likely sign up to a course for the other science subjects though. My plan is to go into a science or engineering based degree, I just need to narrow down what my end goal is as I have a few different ideas and I'm not entirely sure which route to take at the moment (hence not knowing which second science subject to do!)

I've decided against and access course for various reasons, particularly seeing a lot of posts on here by people in STEM subject degrees saying that they would have felt more prepared by going into more depth into subjects which they didn't feel that they got from the access, which is something I think I'll need/want.

Couple of points.

Are you planning on taking these A levels full-time or part time? If full-time, I think there' be an expectation that you'd complete the course in two years. But things are always different for mature students, so it might be worth checking with a few universities you're interested in to see what their opinion on your doing them over three year is. You've then got a definitive answer.

It might be worth attempting to narrow down what you want to study at university before you finally chose your A levels, so they're most relevant. For instance, if you decide Physics is your chosen discipline, then it would be better to do Maths, FM and Physics than psychology. I understand that you are interested in psychology, but for a maths/physical science application, I think you need to be careful that taking it (with a further 2 A levels) doesn't 'displace' something more useful. A propos, I would counsel against taking 4 A levels. The standard offer is nearly always 3 A Levels, and four just means more (and possibly unnecessary work). Worse, if you take 4, there's always the danger of actually being made an offer for 4, rather than the standard 3.

Hope some of this provides food for thought.